"Gordon R. Dickson - The Last Dream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

It is a blessing that fantasy тАЬfans fresh our wits with wonderтАЭ lest we smother in mundane chaos and
corruption. Values only fleetingly glimpsed in our Primary World stand out clearly in a well-made
Secondary One. Thus it can offer a satisfying vision of moral harmony unattained here. In particular,
fantasy speaks to our sense of justice. We want to see the ogre slain, the witch bested, the cripple
healed, the prince and princess live happily ever after. Nihilists who delight in letting тАЬdoom come and
dark conquerтАЭ pervert the very essence of fantasy and mock the longing for joy that animates it.

What is made in fancy may yet be made in fact. Humorously or grandly, humbly or nobly, modern fantasy
carries on the work of mankindтАЩs oldest stories. It leads each of us readers beyond ourselves to discover
that each of the HeroтАЩs thousand faces is our own.

J.R.R. Tolkien тАЬdesired dragons with a profound desire.тАЭ Yet even the keenest draconophile must
set some limits to intimacy.

ST. DRAGON AND THE GEORGE

A TRIFLE DIFFIDENTLY, JIM ECKERT RAPPED WITH HIS CLAW on the blue-painted door.

Silence.

He knocked again. There was the sound of a hasty step inside the small, oddly peak-roofed house and
the door was snatched open. A thin-faced old man with a tall pointed cap and a long, rather
dingy-looking white beard peered out, irritably.

тАЬSorry, not my day for dragons!тАЭ he snapped. тАЬCome back next Tuesday.тАЭ He slammed the door.

It was too much. It was the final straw. Jim Eckert sat down on his haunches with a dazed thump. The
little forest clearing with its impossible little pool tinkling away like Chinese glass wind chimes in the
background, its well-kept greensward with the white gravel path leading to the door before him, and the
riotous flower beds of asters, tulips, zinnias, roses and lilies-of-the-valley all equally impossibly in bloom
at the same time about the white finger-post labelled S. Carolinus and pointing at the houseтАФit all whirled
about him. It was more than flesh and blood could bear. At any minute now he would go completely
insane and imagine he was a peanut or a cocker spaniel. Grottwold Hanson had wrecked them all. Dr.
Howells would have to get another teaching assistant for his English Department. AngieтАж

Angie!

Jim pounded on the door again. It was snatched open.

тАЬDragon!тАЭ cried S. Carolinus, furiously. тАЬHow would you like to be a beetle?тАЭ

тАЬBut IтАЩm not a dragon,тАЭ said Jim, desperately.

The magician stared at him for a long minute, then threw up his beard with both hands in a gesture of
despair, caught some of it in his teeth as it fell down and began to chew on it fiercely.

тАЬNow where,тАЭ he demanded, тАЬdid a dragon acquire the brains to develop the imagination to entertain the
illusion that he is not a dragon? Answer me, O Ye Powers!тАЭ